


Forest Fires

by gaypanic



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Enchanted Forest, Angst, Biphobia, Bisexual Regina Mills Week, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, Minor Daniel Colter/Evil Queen | Regina Mills, Romantic Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Snow White | Mary Margaret Blanchard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 08:14:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13407126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaypanic/pseuds/gaypanic
Summary: Snow Queen, written for Bisexual Regina Mills Week Day four, free day! Set in the Enchanted Forest, Snow and Regina pull against the inevitable, trying to run despite the magnetism that holds them together.





	Forest Fires

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song "Forest Fires" by Lauren Aquilina, which is Snow Queen af. 
> 
> Snow and Regina are closer to the same age, there’s no underage happening, there is no Leopold, and any other context should be answered within the fic itself as you read it. 
> 
> It’s the first Snow Queen fic I’ve ever written so I hope you like it!

{ _ snow _ }

She’d never understood what had happened, but she knew she was to blame. From not being enough to being too much, from saying nothing to saying everything, Snow didn’t need to ask questions about Regina. She’d come to learn that their relationship (if it could still be called that) was one of blind acceptance.

Today was just another one of those days. 

Snow woke up, dismantled her impromptu shelter and set out, wrangling some breakfast on her way to the nearest village. With every step she took in the village’s direction, the air felt cold, not due to the temperature but something else. Darkness could make the air icy in it’s own way, and when she felt the traces of magic like bitter wind against her skin, she recognized it immediately. 

Regina had been here.

Snow froze in place, while her heart sped up. She was unsure if she wanted to run forwards for a chance to see her, or if she wanted to run in the opposite direction for a means of escape. Could she handle seeing her face to face?

She’d seen Regina’s carriages hundreds of times from the treetops, watching as they passed beneath her, catching just enough of a glimpse through the window to identify the color of Regina’s dress but nothing more, and other than that, she hadn’t seen Regina but a handful of times since that night in the stables those few years ago.

That night was both her favorite and least favorite of her latest encounters with Regina. It was the last time she ever saw her smile. At the time, it broke her heart, stirred up the anger she’d so adamantly denied having, but looking back, she was glad she was able to see the brunette’s gorgeous smile one last time, even if she wasn’t the one that caused it.

Instead of smiles of course, she only caused pain.

Every time she caught a glance of Regina, she could feel that night coursing like fire through her veins. Appearing in the open door in the stable, just in time to hear Regina whisper: “Let’s run away together. Right now” before pressing her lips to Daniel’s.

There was a snapping sound just then, and Snow didn’t know if it had been a twig or her heart, but either way, Regina must have heard it. Her head spun towards Snow, their eyes immediately locked, and for just a moment, the Regina’s eyes were soft and sympathetic and rueful, but Snow was too upset to care.

“ _ Let’s run away together, _ ” she had said once to Regina, long before her arranged marriage, before Daniel, and it had been received with a smile, giddy with the kind of potential you never expect to fade.

It had of course, and the same smile was now meant for someone else, the same words attached to it, and it was all Snow could think as she turned and ran, ignoring Regina’s cries after her, not stopping until she was running through familiar halls to a room she’d only been to once.

Cora squinted at her when the door opened, and Snow didn’t give her a chance to question anything, not why she was there, not why she was crying, before blurting out what Regina was planning and where she was. She thought of nothing but stopping it. Consequence seemed intangible, but when it struck, it was anything but.

The next time she saw Regina was a few months after everything went down. She had run off, seeking refuge in a cottage owned by some dwarves. She was depressed, always seeking a way to forget Regina, but even when she found it - an apple enchanted with a memory spell - her untarnishable love for the other woman transcended it, and it was almost a mark of fate that she saw Regina the next day.

She almost didn’t recognize her, dressed so dark, from her makeup to her dress, and it was a stunning sight, but the appearance opposed Snow’s name so wholly that it almost felt like an intentional burn against her.

The next time she saw her, they made eye contact. 

Snow learned that day that Regina had been practicing magic, and she felt it like a thrum in her chest when their eyes met, and then only seconds after, she felt that same magic throwing her through the air before she landed hard on the ground. Her breath was knocked away, and by the time she got it back, Regina was gone in a cloud of purple smoke. 

She had never figured out exactly what the queen had been doing in the woods that day, but a small part of her hoped it was to find Snow.

The third and most recent time she saw Regina, they spoke. 

Snow had been robbing a passing carriage, thinking that because it wasn’t one she recognized, she would be safe from the woman haunting her heart and memories, but as she stopped its course with a log and ran towards it, the door flew open, and there Regina sat, a malicious smirk on her face.

The bandit had been too stunned to move, and even when every cell in her body screamed at her to disappear, she seemed unable to make it happen. “Are you using magic on me?” She had to be sure.

Regina’s face said it all, twisting in confusion. “What?”

So it wasn’t magic, not the controlled kind anyway. Snow had heard of other magics that were more powerful than anything any human could master, and as she watched Regina’s eyes widen, seemingly frozen as well, she wondered if this was an example of such ancient magics.

“Regina, I…”

“Don’t,” Regina spat, still unmoving until Snow tore her eyes away, her humiliation at the older woman seeing her cry overcoming the pull that kept her in place. It seemed to break the spell on Regina as well, because she recoiled to the far end of the carriage. “Get out,” she said, her voice firm but somehow soft beneath it all, as if she was barely holding it together. Snow knew better than to ask, and she was gone before Regina could see the heartbreak in her eyes, still lingering from the day she left her.

And now, here she was, faced with the prospect of seeing Regina again. She moved forward, drawn in her direction like a magnet, and she knew what she was going to see it. Not Regina, but Regina’s  _ aftermath _ .

It was always hard, coming up on a slaughtered animal, or a dead body, or a  _ pile _ of dead bodies, or just some form of magic-made natural destruction.

This time, it was blood in dark splatters against the snow, and Snow sucked in a harsh breath, flinching but not turning away, as if Regina could somehow see her reaction to it all. The traces of magic were lingering but not fully present, and it was enough to tell Snow that Regina was no longer there. 

She had no way of chasing after her, no way to fall at her knees and beg for forgiveness, no way to take her hands in hers and kiss the tips of her fingers until all went back to the way it once was, no way to redeem any of her actions.

Sometimes Snow wondered how she could still love someone who had killed so many, but she believed so strongly that it was her own fault to begin with, not to mention the magic she felt inside her that seemed to come from Regina. The same magic that gave Snow hope for Regina’s redemption.

But with every body, with every drop of blood shed, Snow found it harder to hold hope.

For Regina’s atonement, for her own heartbreak, for  _ them. _

But she couldn’t blame her.

 

{ _ regina _ }

For as long as Regina could remember, she’d been broken. 

Her mother would talk to her about princes and kings and husbands, and it all sounded fine to her, but she was left wondering why her mother never mentioned anything about women. She never asked, acknowledging the feeling of dread in her stomach that it wouldn’t end well if she did.

The first person she ever heard say anything about it was her mother, making a dismissive comment with that telltale sneer of disapproval on her lips about two men who decided to marry and rule their kingdom together. One was royalty, the other was a guard, but all she seemed to care about was the fact that they were both men.

“Is that bad?” Regina blurted out, interrupting her mother. She flinched when she realized she had, but Cora didn’t even seem to notice, gaping at her in outrage.

“ _ Of course _ it’s bad. What kind of life do you think those men are going to lead? What kind of life would  _ you _ expect to lead if you married a  _ woman _ ?”

Regina didn’t answer, and she didn’t bring up the subject again, not to her mother. Not to anyone. She didn’t hate the idea of being with a man, she even found herself excited by the prospect, so all she would need to do is ignore the other pieces of her brain that told her she would be okay with a woman too.

The subject never came up until after she had come of age. 

She was eighteen and at the stables, preparing for a ride, when she heard screams of panic. Without hesitation, she pulled herself onto Rocinante and lead him towards the sound. It was a girl around her own age who had lost control of her horse. 

Regina managed to catch up to them and pull the other girl from the horse and onto Rocinante, and as they slowed, Regina couldn’t help but admire her. She was the most beautiful girl, that she had ever seen, and when they came to a halt and had their feet back on the ground and the other brunette smiled at her, Regina ducked her head, unable to do much else.

“Thank you,” she breathed. 

“You’re welcome,” Regina answered. “Are you okay?” She looked back up at her, as if to identify any visible injuries, but all she could see was her smile.

“I am now.” 

The words had Regina’s stomach flipping, and she tried to remind herself that this wasn’t  _ right _ , but it couldn’t be helped. Not the swirl of  _ something _ in her chest, not the way Regina smiled back at her, and not the way she said the words, “What would the world be like if the damsel didn’t have her hero?” 

She  _ actually _ said that.

She blushed hard and tore her eyes away from the other girl’s, still smiling brightly at her. “I mean… I’m sorry, I’m not saying that you’re  _ incapable _ , I’m just--”

“Lost?” 

Regina didn’t know if she was answering her question or completing her sentence, but she nodded in response, and the girl’s smile only grew, so whichever it was, she didn’t mind.

“I’m Snow,” she finally introduced.

“My name’s Regina.”

“Regina,” Snow smiled as she took her hand. “It’s wonderful to meet you.”

They shook each other’s hands for what felt like a longer time than it probably was, and when Regina asked, “Do you want me to teach you how to ride a horse?” it seemed to surprise  _ her _ more than the other girl.

Snow had immediately agreed to the lesson, and they spent the rest of the day together, Regina showing her the ins and outs of caring for horses and riding them. Evening crept closer, and they found themselves looking across a field at the sunset, their backs against the trunk of a tree, their shoulders pressed together as they talked about everything: what they liked, what they wanted from their future, and it was Snow that mentioned the subject Regina had been trying to stop thinking about this whole time.

“I suppose I want to be married one day, but only if I feel it, you know? I want to  _ really _ be in love, not just ‘in love…’ Does that make sense?”

“I think so… I haven’t felt either of those things yet, so I can’t be sure.”

“What about… crushes?” Snow glanced over at her before turning her body towards Regina. “Have you ever thought someone was so beautiful that your stomach fluttered? Or met someone so sweet that you thought your heart was gonna melt?” She was closer now, and Regina felt her stomach fluttering and her heart melting. “Any boy or… any girl?”

It was a confirmation on more than one level. Something that told Regina what she needed about Snow, but also somehow about herself. It struck her in that moment how stupid her insecurities and fears were, how irrational to think that two women couldn’t fall in love, and how much she just wanted to--

And then they were kissing.

Regina thought that she would be hesitant, but the kiss swept her up like a wave. Snow’s hand weaved into her hair, cupping the base of her skull, her other hand gripping Regina’s arm. She was too dizzy to know where her own hands were, but when they finally pulled apart, one was tugging on Snow’s hair, another gripping her thigh. She blushed furiously as she tried to catch her breath. “Sorry,” she whispered.

Snow shook her head, pressing her lips softly against Regina’s one more time. “Only be sorry if you don’t want to do that again.”

Regina decided she wasn’t sorry at all.

They made a pattern of this, meeting in secret, sometimes staying with each other under the guise of  _ best friends _ and no one ever suspected a thing.

For months, it was  _ everything _ , until one day, it wasn’t. 

Regina couldn’t explain it. She was walking through town one day and saw two women walking hand in hand down the street, and she froze in place. A part of her saw it and wanted it, but a bigger part of her started eating her up from the inside out, a reminder that it wasn’t right. 

She was supposed to have gotten rid of these thoughts and these feelings. She was supposed to love a man, but here she was instead, falling head over heels for Snow, if she hadn’t fallen already. 

Up until that moment, when they were together, it felt inexplicably right. The beating of her heart had its own rhythm around her, and all she knew was that she didn’t want the joy it brought her to ever go away. But when she saw those two women in town turn for a kiss, Regina tore her gaze away and felt her once pure feelings become tarnished.

Kissing Snow was never the same after that.

But she couldn’t just  _ leave _ . Their lives were intertwined now, and she was too present. Like Regina, Snow was falling hard. It was clear. In a disturbing way, Regina thought the intensity of Snow’s feelings made it easier. Snow was  _ wrong _ for her feelings and for letting them go on. Regina was  _ right _ for forcing them to a halt. 

She didn’t communicate any of this to Snow. She grew distant and stopped showing up for their secret meetings, stopped initiating kisses, stopped asking for anything. Snow’s hope for them was a fire in itself, burning hard and refusing to be extinguished.

One day, Regina knew she had to stop it for good. Snow wasn’t going anywhere, and the older girl took a deep breath as she looked the one who was probably the love of her life right in her eyes and said, “I can’t do this anymore.”

That was it. Snow had fought back tears as she turned and ran, the question of why burning through her mind, Regina had seen it in her eyes in that brief moment. She didn’t offer any explanation as she let Snow disappear.

She felt her heart break, and she couldn’t decide if she wanted to run back to her and fight for what they had or run the other way entirely.

It was months before she felt okay enough to return to her normal activities, and the minute she felt up for it, she returned to the stables.

She met Daniel on her second day back.

He was sweet to her, handsome in his own way, and it was the first time Regina felt any kind of fire for anyone other than Snow. It was strong, not as strong as Snow’s had been, but it was enough to help her move on, enough to convince her that she had eradicated her  _ problem _ into her past, pushed it away like she had her former lover.

She and Daniel carried their relationship on in secret, like she had with Snow, only it didn’t come as naturally. Daniel could never come over or stay the night because he was a man, and he wasn’t from a royal family.

She thought about coming forward about it and telling her mother, confident that since he was the right gender, the class divide wouldn’t matter, but Cora had her in an arranged marriage before she ever got the chance. Her betrothal was to a king older than her, but not by much, and if she wasn’t with Daniel, she might not have minded the idea of marrying him.

But it  _ was _ with Daniel.

The wedding was days away, and Regina grew more and more antsy as it approached. She snapped one night, throwing a few essentials into a knapsack and dashing to the stables. Daniel grinned at her when she ran in but his face fell when he noticed the urgency hers carried.

She pressed her lips to Daniel’s, holding herself there for as long as one breath would allow before she pulled back. “Daniel, I can’t go through with the marriage.”

“You said that, but you also said…”

“That I can’t get out of it, I know. But… there  _ is _ a way.” Daniel’s brow furrowed in question, and Regina beamed at him. She had the answer to both their problems. “Let’s run away together. Right now.” 

The words struck Regina’s heart like a string that was out of tune, remembering Snow saying those same words to her,  _ let’s run away together _ , back when Regina believed they would never be apart, and she kissed Daniel again.

It wasn’t lost on her that she only did it to push Snow from her mind.

But somehow, the opposite seemed to happen.

Her heart thrummed again, like it used to when she and Snow would touch, or kiss, or just be near each other, and it was enough to break her lips apart from Daniel’s, realizing that  _ he  _ shouldn’t be the one she was kissing. 

It should be  _ her _ .

Regina’s brain went fuzzy as she blinked at Daniel, trying to wrap her head around how she even got here, why it had mattered so much to reject her love for Snow and Snow’s love for her when she heard a noise. She looked over to see none other than Snow, standing in the open doorway wearing an expression of jealous sorrow and angry heartbreak, and as she stood to confront her, Snow ran.

Regina didn’t hesitate before chasing after her, leaving Daniel alone in the stables. She called out for Snow but the other girl’s steps never faltered, and it never occurred to her which direction she was running in until her mother appeared in the stable in a cloud of smoke fifteen minutes later next to Daniel, crouching by an inconsolable Regina.

Both of them were on their feet at the first sign of Cora, and within minutes, the woman had Daniel’s heart in her hand, crushing it to dust that ran through her fingers. “Regina, dear, did you forget you were to marry the king in only a few days? We can’t have silly  _ stable boys _ distracting you.”

Regina sobbed over Daniel’s body, torn at his loss, but still she could only think:  _ This could have been Snow _ .

_ Snow. _

It was obvious to Regina that she was the reason Daniel was dead, snitching when she saw them together, but somehow past all that, Regina could still feel her heart pounding for the other woman, pining after her even after she ruined her life.

( _ But didn’t I ruin it first _ ?)

She went through with the wedding, but it was a terrible marriage The king wasn’t sweet to her like Daniel had been, and she couldn’t love him like she had loved Snow. Her mother yelled at her about being a disappointment to the king and to her and to the kingdom having not had heirs yet, and it made Regina so mad that magic flowed from her fingertips, knocking the woman through a portal she didn’t even realize existed.

_ Good riddance, _ she thought through her state of panic, gazing down at her hands and the power they apparently possessed. It was disturbing, but it somehow felt familiar, like she had used magic before…

She sought out a teacher and ended up with Rumplestiltskin. He started her on the path of darkness, and she wanted to impress him. He told her she would fail him as a student, underestimating her power, so Regina killed her husband and claimed the throne for herself, thinking that would be enough to convince him.

It was.

That was her first kill.

Over the next few years, murder became  _ casual _ to Regina. If someone pissed her off enough, killing them was the solution. When someone disagreed with her, she reached the same result. She became known as the Evil Queen, and the first time she heard the name, she decided to own it. 

She never sought out Snow, never sent any immediate threats her way, but murder became her way of delivering messages. At first it was just rabbits or deer, slaughtered and bloody. But sometimes it was a person, a knife in the stomach or an arrow in the heart. And even less often, it was a whole group. A caravan of travelers or an entire village. She left traces of magic behind, and she wasn’t sure Snow could feel them but if she could feel Snow’s presence just from the rhythm in her heart, there was a chance. Even if Regina ran before the bandit’s arrival.

Regina may have been hated by her followers, but at least she was feared. For a while, embracing her evil side was good. It felt natural and powerful and  _ right _ , but the dichotomy between good and evil crumbled before her one night as she cried herself to sleep. She couldn’t  _ just _ be evil if she also felt good.

She couldn’t  _ just _ like men if she also liked women.

She couldn’t  _ just _ hate Snow if she also loved her. 

But Regina had made herself into a monster, the kind of person even Snow could never forgive, and even if she  _ could _ , the queen didn’t want her to. She deserved better, and even if Regina couldn’t move on, slaughtering villages just to get the other woman’s attention, Snow ought to.

But she wasn’t, or Regina didn’t think she was. Her carriage got stopped or attacked too many times to be anything less than suspicious, and the amount of times she had to quench a fire and restore the entire forest was staggering. Each flame she saw burning through the trees reminded her of the flames in her heart, burning painfully with the hope that those fires were  _ for _ her.

But at the same time, she hoped they were just fires.

This morning she used her magic to kill a group of people in the woods, a short distance Snow’s campsite, leaving nothing but the blood soaked snow behind. She waited until Snow was almost at the scene to disappear, and she did something she’s been telling herself not to. 

She looked in her mirror and produced the vision of Snow just in time to watch her take in Regina’s latest message. She looked at it for a long moment, her expression flashing from a horrified steadfastness to a near hopeless melancholy before settling on something more fierce. She looked around before her gaze settled on one spot, as if the younger woman somehow knew Regina was looking.

Regina’s heart beat wildly in her chest, skipping painfully when she saw that Snow’s face was damp with tears, and as it happened, Snow clutched at her chest as if she felt the same sensation, as though they were connected. 

A giggle sounded from behind Regina, and she turned away from the vision of Snow in the mirror. “What?” she nearly growled at her intruder.

Rumplestiltskin grinned, “You know why I always thought you would fail at the magic I had to teach you?” Regina shook her head. “Because of  _ that _ ,” he said, pointing both fingers to the mirror.

“What?” she asked, not following.

“You always had magic, but it was light magic. The  _ lightest  _ magic. Do you know what kind of magic that is?” He giggled again, not waiting for Regina’s guess to provide the answer. “True Love.” He watched it all sink in, and by the time it did and Regina’s knees gave out and fell against the hard floor, the imp was gone. Everything with Snow made sense. The way their hearts beat in sync with the other, why Snow thought Regina was using magic on her the last time they spoke, why neither of them could ever move on.

She looked back up to Snow in time to see the woman wiping the tears from her eyes. “I still love you,” she whispered, almost inaudible, as she turned to leave the site, going the way opposite Regina’s castle.

It was for the best that Snow was running again, but Regina still longed for her to run the other direction, give in to the magnet that has always brought them together.

“I still love you too,” she softly admitted, burying her head in her hands, sobbing on the floor of her castle for a moment, listening to the soft whistling of the wind outside and the chatter of the people below, full of laughter and genial conversation and all the things Regina ached for..

Even though she knew it wouldn’t work, she pulled herself up and made her way to the case of potions. She picked the strongest memory potion she had and injected it into her veins like a drug. She didn’t stop until there was nothing left, hoping that an overdose would ease her pain once and for all. Just a moment, she went blissfully numb. 

But it didn’t last, and the emotions she locked away rushed forward like a wildfire, and she screamed in agony, teleporting herself into the forest and conjuring up as many fireballs as she could manage before her energy was all spent and she fell back down to her knees, a sob escaping her lips. “I still love you,” she repeated, loud enough to be heard over the crackling of fire.

Unbeknownst to the queen, Snow stood behind her, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle her own sob as she retreated to run once again.

Regina let the fire burn for a while before putting it out and fixing the forest.

It wasn’t as though Snow would get the message anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> I would really love and appreciate your feedback!


End file.
